started. Shannon started with her opening few lines, and when it came to my part, I completely froze. I had spent all that time, energy, and effort practicing, and suddenly, I had forgotten it all. I mean a real deer in the headlights kind of moment, which felt like an eternity, as I looked out upon the couple hundred people in the audience, including my parents. After what was probably about ten seconds, I heard Shannon whisper my line beside me, and it all instantly came flooding back to me, and I was able to recover and finish the pitch. I remember feeling so embarrassed as we left the stage and so disappointed in myself, but also that I had let my Co-Founder down. We ended up placing fifth, which for our first pitch wasn’t too bad. A few weeks later, we pitched at a similar type of event, and the same kind of thing happened. At the time, I had chalked it up to getting hit in the head one too many times playing hockey, but no matter the excuse, I completely lost my confidence pitching, and from that moment forward, Shannon took over pitching solo at future events. Over time, after watching Shannon compete at nearly two dozen events and
the preparation she put into beforehand, I came to realize that my problem was that I was overpreparing and focusing on getting every word perfect rather than commanding the audience and having fun with it. No matter how many times I practiced, the words were always going to come out a little different than what I had practiced, and that was okay. No one other than myself was going to know when I mixed up a word or left out a point I had intended to make. While preparation is important, overpreparing can psych you out. During my hockey career, no matter how physically or mentally prepared I was, I still made mistakes. The perfect hockey game has yet to be played, and it took me years to figure that out as a startup founder. Fast forward to the present day, I’ve given dozens of major presentations and speeches to audiences from twenty people to over two thousand people. I have refined my preparation process and genuinely enjoy public speaking once again. I still believe in the old expression “If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail,”but I now have a new outlook on it, and hopefully, my experience can serve as an example of the detriment of overpreparing.
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While preparation is important, overpreparing can psych you out. ”
106 SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • VOL 25 ISSUE 2
INNOVATION • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE 107
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